Check it out!

Check out my neighbour/girlfriend's new site! It has the cutest stuff, and for the first 2 WEEKS of 2008 they are doing a "Give away a day". All you have to do is leave a comment and you could win the SUPER CUTE stuff!!

Getting "on track" for the New Year

Today we took the family out to the High Desert Museum for their "Winter Wildlife Day." The highlight of our trip was a tracking class presented by the "Coyote Trails"(check them out at http://www.coyotetrails.org/ ) After a 20 min. presentation on how to identify what animal had left a trail based on a track, it's stride and gait we headed out in the woods to identify. The tracker guides were amazing and passionate about what they do... they were careful not to tell us the answer, but help us figure out who had left the track by asking us more questions (which at times was very frustrating) . We ended up out tracking for over an hour and it was very interesting. I think this would be a very intriguing hobby. It is solving a mystery everytime! I love my "granola" Bend! (Apparently there used to be a Bend Tracking club, but quit because of lack of participation, but the guy today seemed to think it was starting up again in a month or so, anyone interested? It's at Shevlin park on Saturday mornings)

Try and guess a couple of the tracks below (they're easy, I didn't get pics of the tough ones)

Track A
What kind of track is this?

Showing us the trail- Ethan was very much into this stuff!

Track B

What is it?

Happy New Year!

Last night we had a great crew over for our impromptu New Year's party. I have posted a pic of our party crew just after midnight (minus the Hansen's and Maria who unfortunately had to leave early). The big girls spent most of the night with the Wii and High School Musical, and the little girls played with the new kitchen grampa put together, and played "camping" in the dark, and Ethan... well... he was literally the "odd man out". I told him I was sorry that none of the families I got to come had kids his age to which he replied... "Ok, well, I don't really need kids my age... just boys." :-) Awww. He couldn't take the loud giggling and being silly after awhile and sat in our room and watched "Back to the Future" on our computer.
I couldn't believe the little kids lasted so long, or rather their parents!!
I am so excited to have a house, or more importantly, a kitchen big enough to have friends over. We had such a great time and a great NAP this afternoon!!

The real star of the show last night was this beauty! For those of you who may not know... I had NOT had a dishwasher a single day of our 14 year marriage, until we moved into this house! So today I share with you my "Ode to My Dishwasher"

"Ode to a Dishwasher"

Dishwasher, dishwasher how I love thee

Since I've had you I feel very free.

No more scouring and washing for hours and hours,

I am truly amazed by your dish washing powers.

Last night I had a party with family and friends

We loaded you up at our parties end.

When I woke up and opened the door

All of my dishes were dirty no more!

Dishwasher, don't break! What would I do?

Now I could never live without you!

New Year's Resolutions

So here we are at New Years again. I have carefully looked at myself and what I need to do and come up with a few resolutions:
1. Loose some weight- Make an appointment for liposuction
2. Keep a clean house- Call to have "Merry Maids" come in
3. Be more organized- Hire a "Personal Assistant" (I read about these in the paper, I guess they are the "new rage")

Hmmm... that doesn't seem so bad... :-)
Do you make new years resolutions?